Soap in bar or cake form is conventional and has been in use over a hundred years. However, as it is used it becomes reduced to a sliver which breaks up easily. Typically, slivers are wasted, turning to jelly in soap dishes, crumbling and being flushed away in use, or being thrown away.
Another problem with bar-form soap is that people wash incorrectly with it. They wash with the bar, rubbing their skin with the bar. They should rub the wet bar on a wet washcloth and wash with the soapy cloth. TV and print media ads show washing with the bar itself, encouraging misuse. The use of the bar itself to wash is such a habit that when the bar is reduced to a sliver it becomes so hard to wash in that manner that the tendency to throw the sliver 5 away is encouraged. Further, it is hard to soap-up a washcloth when the bar is a sliver. A dropped sliver breaks easily, especially the feather edges. All these problems encourage waste and inefficient washing as the bar-on-skin wash method does not give adequate washing contact.
The prior art does not address or solve these problems. Some soap bars for shower use employ ropes embedded in them to assist in retrieving them when they drop. The rope usually breaks out when the bar is reduced in size.
The other common approach puts the soap bar inside a sponge, not vice versa. Blair U.S. Pat. No. 1,748,406 provides a large sponge with a center pocket and a curved openable flap in one side face for inserting the bar of soap. Putting the bar inside the large sponge pocket is said to provide a constant supply of soap lather to the sponge. Smith U.S. Pat. No. 2,588,773 also puts a bar of soap in a sponge pocket, provides snap-closeable access at one end, and channels in one face to permit water access and lather exit. Spiteri U.S. Pat. No. 3,114,928 provides a pocket in a sponge with the end opening closeable by Velcro.TM. material. Caniglia U.S. Pat. No. 4,457,643 provides a sponge having a center pocket for a bar of soap, curved sides for entry end. Iknadosssian U.S. Pat. No. 4,746,456 provides a cleaning composition including potato pulp. It does not appear relevant but may be the shortest U.S. patent.
Brillo.TM.-type soap pads are largely kitchen scrubbers made of metal or tough plastic that are partly impregnated with slow dissolving, high strength soap which includes abrasive agents. At most the soap is a small core, the purpose being to present a non-woven, tough scrubbing surface to remove baked-on or dried food and food stains from dishes, pots and pans, and counter surfaces. They are not used as bath or cosmetic soap bars. Lava.TM.-type soap bars contain pumice uniformly throughout to provide abrasive cleaning action.
There is thus a need for better and complete use of bar soap that overcomes the problems noted.